Friday, August 3, 2012

A Finger-Related Update

Because I get asked "how's your finger?" so often...

Today, I went back to my occupational therapist in Birmingham (in 2 weeks, it will mark 6 months since my injury).
I went to her before heading back to Auburn in June after I got back from Student Life and she gave a list of instructions for my physical therapist in Auburn (my PT rarely dealt with fingers while my OT is a hand specialist). I brought her instructions to him in Auburn only to be released from PT that same day. Feeling very frustrated and defeated, I decided to try to forget about the finger for a while.

Keep in mind, this was 4 1/2 months into my injury and involved 4 doctors, 2 therapists, something like 8 splints/casts/braces, and no answers to questions besides, "this is a bad injury and fingers take a while to heal...just be patient."

So, I decided to ignore the finger. You would be surprised how hard it is to do things normally with one finger out of service. After a putt putt debacle and some trouble packing and moving, I gave up and admitted defeat. I called my OT back and scheduled the appointment for today.

Long story short, I finally got some answers:

-The joint where my finger was dislocated will be as large as it is 6-8 months after my injury for the rest of my life (meaning how it looks in 2-10 weeks).
-My ring size (because this is my wedding ring finger) will obviously go up and will more than likely not change from the size it is 8 months after my injury.
-I may not ever be able to make a fist, but I'll come somewhat close to one.
-I will more than likely have a small curve to my finger for the rest of my life.
-When I reach the year mark since my injury (February), my finger will probably have healed as much as it's going to.

They did tell me that because I am young, there's always a chance I'll improve past what they predicted.


I'm so thankful to have received guidance with this issue. Even though it's still a little sad, I'm just glad to know where I stand with this whole thing.

The most encouraging bit of news I got today is that I have gone from bending the finger 65 degrees to 90 degrees in a little over 5 weeks. So, I'm not done yet. Let's see how much more progress I can make in the next few months...